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The Americans Pledging to Buy Less–Or Even Nothing
- pseudolus 2y agohttps://archive.ph/59laB https://archive.ph/59laB
- ty6853 2y agoThe biggest advantage of DIY over buying is no taxes or regulation. I built a house without codes or inspection for $30k, meanwhile it would cost you $300k+ for same.
- leetrout 2y agoDo you have more details? How long did it take you? What's the square footage and number of bedrooms / bathrooms? Did anyone help you? Did you include buying / renting tools in that amount? Already own the land? Interior / exterior finish levels? e.g. is it a cabin?
- glouwbug 2y agoI wouldn't recommend it if anything were to go wrong. It's a quick way to end up in bankruptcy if anyone gets hurt, or if your neighbors property gets damaged
- potato3732842 2y agoNot getting hurt isn't hard. Not trashing your neighbor's property is even easier. But this isn't the kind of project one should take on with zero experience. Do yourself a favor and buy a backhoe that's a runner to start with even if it costs 5x more than a project.
- m463 2y ago> Not getting hurt isn't hard. Are you certain? I've done plenty of DIY projects, and as soon as you start using hand tools, the risk goes up, especially if you include cutting or drilling.
- SoftTalker 2y agoThats what liability insurance is for, which you need if you own property, whether anything is built on it or not.
- teeray 2y agoClaim denied (mumbles reasons and lengthy and expensive appeals process). Balance due immediately.
- mmooss 2y agoI wonder if you could end up in jail.
- zdragnar 2y agoProbably, if you do something blatantly negligent and kill someone. Short of manslaughter, though, I suspect jail or prison time is pretty unlikely. You'll still be financially ruined if you don't have insurance or your insurance won't cover your foolishness though.
- potato3732842 2y agoThe most likely path to jail probably involves putting a bullet in a problem neighbor or government official rather than an accident of any sort.
- ty6853 2y agoYou can own a house as an llc.
- cudgy 2y agoOne less person to compete for the scraps and pay top price for the mass produced craps. /s
- ty6853 2y ago600 sqft 2 bd / 1 ba Mostly no help Not include tools or land but include renting an excavator to do the site prep and dig footings Vinyl and drywall
- deadbabe 2y agoYou built a shed.
- ty6853 2y agoLegally it has a valid county permit as a home.
- mmooss 2y agoHow did you get a permit without an inspection and being up to code? Is it just something you buy in your county?
- ty6853 2y agoI drew a square on a map, they stamped it, and that was that. And for record I built to minimum code, but no one was looking.
- m463 2y agopermits depend on location. Big difference between say NYC and unincorporated land in BFE.
- yencabulator 2y agoRural area permits can be more of a "you're not building too close to the edge of your property, ok great" kind of a deal.
- lupire 2y agoThat costs $100K not $300K
- yial 2y agoNot the original commenter, but I’ve done extensive renovations of different sizes, and walls off restorations of 3 houses. The 30k to me, sounds possible ish, but also hard especially without a helper. Personal example, I’ve gotten many materials for free. Including several hundred square feet of hardwood floor. But thinking through some basics of just tools needed, and being cheap- and also with an assumption that you have time, and land with wood. And assuming you find cheap / used tools but not junk. Decent chainsaw: $600-$1,000 Alaskan sawmill: $120 Stuff to setup basic kiln house: $600 6-12 months wait on wood. Planer: $400-600 Jointer: $200-300 Impact, drill, sawzall, oscillating saw, jigsaw, circular: $700 Mitre saw and stand: $400 Table saw: $200 Basic plumbing tools, pex or copper : $200 But when I start to think through things aside from that: If you start to buy materials… I think it could be done, if you did a cement or block foundation yourself, and did very basic construction. But my just off the cuff guesstimates, assuming 1500 sq ft ranch house: Lumber for framing: $4,100 Toilets: $240 Fasteners: $500 Drywall: $1,500 Piping, fittings: $1,000 Electrical: $2,500 (assuming electric stove, and electric dryer) HVAC: $8,000 …. I start to see a hard time doing it for 30k, but, I’m sure there’s a way!
- RajT88 2y agoRe: free stuff, this is how my house was built. Leftover materials from a construction site have to be disposed... Unless you are a builder who wants a house and owns a truck and some land... It is a weird house, but built with pretty nice materials. I bought it from the nephew of the builder.
- doodlebugging 2y agoThis is how my grandfather started his home-building business. He built one house using scraps, cutoffs, and reclaimed materials from demolitions. Once he completed the house a local man who had been watching the construction offered to buy it. He sold that house and made enough money to buy another lot and build another larger house. People started coming to him to have him build homes and he became a custom home builder, building homes, churches, businesses, etc. all over the area for around 60 years till he passed away.
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- 535188B17C93743 2y agoHow did you get permitted without an inspection or adhering to code?
- bluGill 2y agoIn rural areas this isn't too hard as they often don't have the in the first place. Of course there are reasons people generally live in cities.
- cma 2y agoAlso reasons for codes, don't want to have to wonder if every building you're in is a death trap. And when buying a house you don't want to have to tear it apart to inspect it and look for balloon framing or lack of fire stops.
- ty6853 2y agoFlippers bid the death traps to oblivion during circa 0% loan inflation binge fest during COVID. I tried looking for a freestanding deathtrap first but they were all 160k+ and that's burnt to a husk. That is how I ended up DIYing from raw land.
- potato3732842 2y agoNobody is building death traps to live in as their own home. The people who are only on a deathtrap budget are not engaging in those projects, they're renting. The people building death traps are slumlords dividing shit and fly by night contractors and flippers altering things <screeches in open floor plan>.
- bluGill 2y agoThat is false. Plenty of people build death traps as their own home. Nobody will know if you remove a load bearing wall without a permit so long as you are not obvious about that work. Slumlords are generally in a place where people will know. Slumlords do want cheap, but they need to get money from the bank and that means the bank will care about quality. Slumlords also don't want to lose everything if the building burns. Note however that quality to a bank and slumlord are things you cannot see and so their buildings often look dangerous while being safe. (I'm not saying all slumlords are perfect, just that their reputation is on a few graphic failures that often were 100 years ago)
- Dalewyn 2y ago>I built a house without codes or inspection for $30k You will, of course, not be able to get insurance nor sell the house later on, among many other hurdles related to liability. Not dissing the idea of DIY, to be clear. Just noting for the audience that freedom is power and power is responsibility.
- ty6853 2y agoSomeone would buy it for $30k cash, if it were for sale.
- doodlebugging 2y agoAt $50/sq ft for a home you'll have people lining up. New home prices are more than double that. Even renting a home costs more than $1/sq ft per month in the area where we own our rental property. Congratulations. You sound like you'd fit right in with my family. Most of us have been building things for a long time. Note to anyone else who might want to give it a whirl - you don't have to buy all the tools. Most of them and all the larger tools are available to rent on long or short-term rental contracts at rates that will save you money if you're only gonna do the project once. The skills are the important things to own yourself. Be open to learning and unafraid of the mantra that you either do it right or you do it over again until you have done it right.
- cudgy 2y agoAlso consider Buying tools new, and then selling them when you’re done, especially for those that you need for long periods during the project. Tools tend to sell for decent prices and quickly in the aftermarket as they are practical items that people need to use to make more money.
- forgetfreeman 2y agoCode compliance is not a prerequisite for selling a property with a structure on it, and it isn't a guarantee that you can't get the structure insured. If it was you'd never be able to get homeowner's insurance on older homes.
- taeric 2y agoWhat? Regulations are in place whether you buy or do the work yourself.
- xnx 2y agoIn a consumerist society, decreasing consumption is a radical act. Saying something against advertisers is tantamount to hate speech on social media.
- m463 2y agoSometimes it's also nonsense. Keeping an old energy-hungry 50's refrigerator or driving a 25mpg volkswagon beetle doesn't add up.
- from-nibly 2y agoIf you also drive less the beetle does make perfect sense. Especially when the car is paid off and you fix it yourself. The fridge may or may not make sense depending on bow long you think your new fridge will go until it fails. Having to buy a new fridge is expensive.
- m463 2y agothe fridge might be a stronger argument. It's like trying to mine bitcoin with a cpu.
- alephnerd 2y ago> Rachel Holdsworth, a part-time nurse and stay-at-home mom, came across no-buy videos around the holidays. Holdsworth wanted to pay off her family’s $10,000 credit-card debt. The 28-year old and her husband, Macy, also wanted to stop living paycheck to paycheck How do you get $10k in credit card debt?!? I've gotten up to $4k at one point, but I was using my credit card to pay my college's tuition payment plan. > Marissa Huertas-Crespo, a 25-year-old financial analyst has done what she calls “low buys” over several years. Whenever she sees something she likes, she takes a screenshot of the item, puts it in a folder on her computer and—at the end of each month—deletes anything she hasn’t thought about. At the end of every quarter, she’ll allow herself to buy something from this folder with money she set aside in a savings account. That's a smart strategy.
- floatrock 2y agoA single medical diagnosis or accident could easily do that.
- randall 2y agoi started a startup on a credit card.
- dmd 2y agoThe average American credit card debt is around $8000. https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/credit-card-debt-statistics/ https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/credit-card-d...
- elif 2y agoTry having a family and you can get some of those 10k bills in a single month.
- alephnerd 2y agoGood point. Haven't hit that milestone yet so didn't consider that.
- ajfriend 2y agoOh man, what an exciting opportunity. clears throat The hacker news title seems to mistranslate the original Em dash to an En dash.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoBuying less is the ultimate control for inflation. In fact, price discrimination is necessary to control inflation.
- kurthr 2y agoI'm frankly astounded at the difference in gas prices you'll see. At one point within 2 blocks there was a station selling $1.6 less, and it wasn't even crazy busy. The other station still had plenty of business. The price difference isn't as large now that prices have come down, but it's $0.7, and both are still just as busy as before.
- wakawaka28 2y agoInflation is a separate variable that influences prices regardless of what any consumers think about prices. In the long run, if the money is in the system, it will be spent. Our perception of what constitutes a high price is largely dependent on the money supply.
- bitmasher9 2y agoSometime in my late twenties I decided my quality of life is good enough, and to not buy fancier stuff. A decade later I still live in the same type of home, drive the same class of car, and eat the same type of food. Inflation made my expenses higher, but my wages have increased more. Living below my means has reduced stress to a degree I couldn’t imagine. When the tech layoffs came, I didn’t stress out because I could go 2-3 years without a paycheck and not miss a bill. When I need to cover a major expense such as AC replacement or urgent air travel I just have cash to cover it. While my peers might take fancier vacations or drive nicer cars, I wouldn’t trade. I have a confidence in finical stability, and I focus on things that really matter to me.
- chneu 2y agoReducing stress is the biggest pro of a consumption-aware lifestyle for me. I don't need the latest crap. I don't need flashy stuff. The desire to have the latest/great and more of it destroys us.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoWe need this but for the government at local, state, and federal levels. The amount of spending and also just plain growth in number of public employees is outrageous, a big risk for the public, and also just disrespectful of taxpayers whose hard earned money is wasted.
- Ekaros 2y agoSomehow a guy who is trying to do something like that is very hated here...
- billgeorge 2y agoWe buy stuff we don’t really need, and we in reality can’t afford, to Impress people we don’t really like,, or know ! We the people control are in control of everything, regardless of how you think government is at the helm, when you stop buying cheap knock off crap from Amazon(aka China), “we the people” can do way more damage than any government action ! So let’s get busy,,less is more, cheers